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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2003 Week 5 Hansard (7 May) . . Page.. 1635 ..

MR WOOD (continuing):

accommodation service, known as the Canberra Emergency Accommodation Service, CEAS, which commenced in February.

Lifeline has commenced a 24-hour, seven days information and referral service, which will be linked with emergency accommodation providers to provide up-to-date accommodation for families and individuals in need of accommodation. Anglicare operates an emergency accommodation fund to assist people with short-term emergence accommodation where no other options exist. Once again, Mr Hargreaves, we are out there working on that problem.

Education funding

MR PRATT: My question is to the minister for education. The ACT school community and we on the opposition benches have had to listen to months, indeed years, of rhetoric from the government about its commitment to spend the whole $27 million from the Liberals' free school bus program "inside the school gates". In the budget released yesterday we find that you, as education minister, have reneged on that promise. Indeed, Minister, at least $1.6 million is missing from the project for smaller class sizes, a project the Liberals initiated when in government and Labor promised to continue.

MR SPEAKER: Are you going to come to the question?

MR PRATT: I am almost there, Mr Speaker. The $1.6 million was supposed to include $1 million, taken out of the $27 million in last year's budget, as a capital injection for smaller K-3 class sizes. Also missing from the program is $600,000 the previous Liberal government invested to kick off the K-3 class reduction program. Where has this sizeable chunk of money gone?

MS GALLAGHER: The government has always made it clear that it will spend the $27 million. The budget yesterday delivered on that, in spending the remaining $7.4 million. The $1.6 million is in the budget, Mr Pratt. I think you are asking me on exactly what page and in what table it is shown. The money for the capital injection for lower class sizes relates to the purchasing of transportable classrooms. We did not need to spend all that money last year, and it has been put into extra costs for Gungahlin Primary School. We are on target to reduce class sizes. There has been no reneging on that promise, Mr Pratt. We have not needed to buy the transportable classrooms.

MR PRATT: I ask a supplementary question. When will your government learn to fulfil its promises in a timely fashion? Have you got all of the resources together to get that program moving in a timely fashion?

MS GALLAGHER: The $27 million was to be spent over three years. The government is committed to that, and we are on target.

Indigenous community-delivery of services

MS DUNDAS: Mr Speaker, my question is to the minister for indigenous affairs. Minister, on 12 December 2001, in a ministerial statement on indigenous affairs, you

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